A 40 year old man, suffering from acute respiratory distress and pneumonia, died at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) on
Tuesday morning at 9.15 am. Though the patient, resident of Wadi, had symptoms of swine flu, it could not be ascertained if he died of H1N1 as his blood and swab samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) on Tuesday morning and reports are expected only by Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile, of the two suspected deaths on September 23 and 25, one patient Manish Kantode tested negative for the H1N1 virus while the report of other patient Pankaj Tiwari from Warthi village in Bhandara is still awaited.
"The patient who died on Tuesday morning had taken treatment with two other city based private doctors, Dr Jambhulkar and Dr Damke, before being referred to GMCH on OPD basis. He was admitted to GMCH on September 27 night at 10 pm," said GMCH dean Dr Deepti Dongaonkar.
GMCH received seven reports on Tuesday and all of them turned out to be negative. Two positive children, who were undergoing treatment for past few days, were discharged after complete recovery. Till Tuesday evening only two patients were admitted to the swine flu isolation ward and of these the condition of a 60-year-old patient from Saunsar is critical. "The patient is not on ventilator but his condition is bad," said professor and head, medicine Dr Bansod.
Of the 10 private hospitals, who had offered to start special swine flu isolation ward, to reduce the load of suspected swine flu patients at GMCH, two hospitals namely Care Hospital and Suretech hospital withdrew their support. Other hospitals who continue to extend their support include Wockhardt, Hope, Kunal, Get Well, KRIMS, OCHRI and the Chandak hospitals which were inspected by a team of GMCH doctors to give them a formal go ahead. The team has sent it's inspection report to the directorate of medical education and research (DMER), Mumbai which will finalise the list of hospitals.